Brad Plumer (Washington Post): There’s quite a bit of good news – and very little bad – in February’s jobs report …. The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs last month …. And there were even more encouraging signs in the data revisions for previous months…..

Some of the broader indicators are encouraging, too …. There are also some reasons to think this recovery can sustain itself through 2012. Ever since the recession ended in mid-2009, the U.S. private sector has been consistently hiring workers. It’s just that the public sector has been hemorrhaging employees – around 500,000 government layoffs since Obama took office. But that trend finally appears to be winding down…..

The U.S. economy is still in a large hole. Right now, we’re adding around 250,000 jobs per month. If that trend keeps up, it’s enough to get us to 8 percent unemployment by election day. That would bode well for President Obama’s reelection chances. But 8 percent unemployment is still unnervingly high …. but, for now, the economy looks to be in decent shape. As Justin Wolfers sums it up, “Let’s call it a recovery.”

WSJ: New York City employers in January added the highest number of jobs in a single month in 23 years, according to new figures released Thursday.

Some 31,200 jobs were added in the month, according to a seasonally adjusted analysis of new state Labor Department figures.

“It is an understatement to say that these gains exceeded all expectations,” said Barbara Byrne Denham, chief economist with the real-estate services firm Eastern Consolidated, who conducted the analysis.

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Paul Krugman never fails to amuse. Here he is today, trying – through gritted teeth – to sound pleased about the jobs’ news:

“OK, definitely a better jobs report than we have become used to. And terrific news for Obama; another six months of news like this and he’ll be in very good shape for reelection.

But still, this was just equivalent to an average month during the Clinton years. And we’re still a long way from full employment.”

(1) Full employment is, usually, defined as 3% unemployment …. so, you have to go back to Eisenhower in 1956 for ‘full employment’ in America. That, then, is the shiny new standard Krugman is holding PBO to. Seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up.

(2) Does Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, truly forget the state of the economy when PBO came to power? Or is he just, eh, forgetful about the facts?

(3) Will Krugman ever find it in his heart to forgive PBO for beating Hillary Clinton to the nomination?

Hillary has. Maybe it’s time for Krugman to move on?

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President Barack Obama talks on the phone with President-elect Vladimir Putin of Russia while aboard Air Force One en route to Richmond, Va., March 9, 2012. Alice Wells, Senior Director for Russian Affairs, is seated at right. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama speaks at a campaign event at Minute Maid Park, Houston, March 9:

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First lady Michelle Obama gets hugs from a pre-schooler at the Penacook Community Center, March 9, in Concord, N.H.

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NYT: The fragile gains Republicans had been making among female voters have been erased, a shift that has coincided with what has become a national shouting match over reproductive issues, potentially handing President Obama and the Democrats an enormous advantage this fall.

In the 2010 congressional midterm elections, Republican candidates ran evenly with Democrats among women, a break with long-established trends. That was a major reason the GOP regained control of the House.

Now, female voters appear to be swinging back to Democrats …. When the Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey asked last summer which party should control Congress, a slim 46-42 percent plurality of women said it should be the Democrats.

But in a survey released Monday, compiling polling since the beginning of the year, that figure had widened considerably to a 15-point advantage for the Democrats

Andrew Sullivan: …. Who Is Washington’s Most Effective Politician? I think Obama is easily the winner and currently stupidly under-rated – and drowned out by all the noise in the conservative-media-industrial-complex.

Here are the political accomplishments: defeating the most heavily favored party machine in decades (the Clintons) while actually bringing his biggest rival into his cabinet, where she has performed extraordinarily well; helping to cement the GOP’s broad identity as extremists opposed to compromise; entrenching black and Hispanic loyalty to his party; retaining solid favorables and not-too-shabby approval ratings during the worst recession since the 1930s. 44 percent of the country still (rightly) blame Bush for this mess, only 15 percent blame Obama.

On policy: ending the US torture regime; prevention of a second Great Depression; enacting universal healthcare; taking the first serious steps toward reining in healthcare costs; two new female Supreme Court Justices; ending the gay ban in the military; ending the Iraq war; justifying his Afghan Surge by killing bin Laden and now disentangling with face saved; firming up alliances with India, Indonesia and Japan as counter-weights to China; bailing out the banks and auto companies without massive losses (and surging GM profits); advancing (slowly) balanced debt reduction without drastic cuts during the recession; and financial re-regulation.

…. When I read commentaries expounding on the notion that this man is completely out of his depth, I just have to scratch my head. Given his inheritance, this has been the most substantive first term since Ronald Reagan’s. And given Obama’s long-game mentality, that is setting us up for a hell of a second one.